Apex Court dismisses PIL challenging ATS probe into Malegaon blast

New Delhi, Jan.27 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the probe by Anti-Terrorist Sqaud (ATS) of Maharashtra Police into the Malegaon blast case and the arrest of persons including Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. “We cannot entertain such a petition,” a Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said. Advocate Kaushal Kishore Chaudhary, in its petition, had questioned the entire probe in which a serving Army officer Lt. Col Srikant Purohit and Retd. Major Ramesh Upadhaya have been arrested. The petitioner sought a judicial inquiry into the entire incident, alleged that the apex court guidelines were not abided by while arresting the accused, including Dayanand Pandey and Sameer Kulkarni and Sham Lal Sahu. The petition alleged that the entire sequence of event was a result of conspiracy between ATS and Maharashtra government with a sole aim of vote bank politics by terming the Malegaon blasts as a product of ”Hindu Terrorism”. The petitioner alleged that the criminal law, constitutional mandate and the Supreme guidelines that parents or the relatives of persons, who are picked up by investigators, should be intimated had not been followed by the ATS while detaining Sadhvi and other co-accused. Besides, the petition also challenged the decision to invoke the stringent law the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crimes Act (MCOCA), alleging that it was a “politically motivated” case lodged with the aim of garnering minority votes. (ANI)